Overview

Mitral valve regurgitation — also called mitral regurgitation, mitral insufficiency or mitral incompetence — is a condition in which your heart's mitral valve doesn't close tightly, allowing blood to flow backward in your heart. As a result, blood can't move through your heart or to the rest of your body as efficiently, making you feel tired or out of breath.

Treatment of mitral valve regurgitation depends on how severe your condition is, whether it's getting worse and whether you have symptoms. For mild leakage, treatment may not be necessary.

You may need heart surgery to repair or replace the valve for severe leakage or regurgitation. Left untreated, severe mitral valve regurgitation can cause heart failure or heart rhythm problems (arrhythmias). Even people without symptoms should be seen and evaluated by a cardiologist and surgeon specializing in mitral valve disease to determine whether early intervention may be beneficial.

Suri RM, et al. Association between early surgical intervention vs watchful waiting and outcomes for mitral regurgitation due to flail mitral valve leaflets. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2013;310:609.

Suri RM, et al. Robotic mitral valve repair for all prolapse subsets using techniques identical to open valvuloplasty: Establishing the benchmark against which percutaneous interventions should be judged. The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. 2011;142:970.

Suri RM, et al. Recurrent mitral regurgitation after repair: Should the mitral valve be re-repaired? The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. 2006;132:1390.

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